Unraveling Our Own Patriarchal Demise

“So we may boldly say: ‘The LORD is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?’”

–Hebrews 13:6


"You better think (think) 
Think about what you're trying to do to me
Yeah, think (think, think) 
Let your mind go, let yourself be free..."

–Aretha Franklin, Think

It was the Sunday school coloring pages of Jesus smiling with open arms that still haunt me today. Jesus and little children gathered around him, all smiling back, seemingly safe and sound.

And Jesus was a man. 

And God is a father.

And Father knows best.

And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” 

But they most certainly do. It's a man's world, for God's sake.

I grew up in an evangelical Christian family, and while to date I don't have a problem with the idea of a benevolent and loving God, I do have a problem with its human roots in patriarchy and its history of oppression -- a system of society, religion and/or government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it.

A system of control that has enabled horrible atrocities to continually occur. The latest grand jury report out of Pennsylvania on abuse in the Catholic Church revealed that at least 1,000 children had been abused by 300 priests and accusing senior church officials of covering up abuse complaints. 

Not just that it happened, but that the church officials covered it up for decades. Men have been doing this for other men for thousands of years, and it's so entrenched in our social and cultural DNA, it's no wonder the unraveling is so painful for us all, especially for women and children.

For men and fathers like me, and I know there are many of you out there, we are finally understanding that deconstructing patriarchy and its ultimate oppressive control is how we can help prevent systemic domestic violence and sexual assault on women and children (and even other men).

We can be part of the solution, to work together with women to transform their communities and shift gender stereotypes, end rape culture and deconstruct the patriarchy. That’s just what we’re attempting to do in Santa Cruz with the Commission for the Prevention of Violence Against Women (CPVAW), holding a one-day awareness and prevention conference called Transforming Together on Saturday, October 6, 2018, at the Louden Nelson Community Center.

According to data collected by RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network), one in 9 girls and 1 in 53 boys under the age of 18 experience sexual abuse or assault at the hands of an adult.

And in 88% of the sexual abuse claims that Child Protective Services (CPS) substantiates or finds supporting evidence of, the perpetrator is male (mostly parents and relatives and others trusted by the children).

The statistics go on and on and the stories of children being sexual abused continue (like the recent migrant children in Arizona).

The sexual and emotional abuse I experienced as a young boy at the hands of my first step-father, one who told me each time it happened that it was "our little secret" and not to tell anyone, especially my mother. I never repressed it, and I knew it was wrong, but I didn't talk about it for years.

Kidpower teaches that problems should not have to be secrets, and that sometimes grown-ups have to touch kids' private areas for heath or safety, but it should never have to be a secret. Otherwise, other people are not supposed to touch private areas, nor are they supposed to ask you to touch their private areas, or to show pictures or movies about people and their private areas. 

Kidpower is the global non-profit with a mission to teach people of all ages and abilities how to use their power to stay safe, act wisely, and believe in themselves, and one organization I truly believe makes a difference in the lives of children, teens and adults around the world. (For an important related read on protecting and empowering children, check out Doing Right By Our Kids.)

I also know that many religions, their respective institutions and the people who belong to them do many good things for their followers and their communities around the world. I also still believe in a loving, benevolent (and genderless) God. However, as a child I wanted so desperately to believe in those pictures of Jesus loving and protecting the children. And yet, I was let down again and again by lesser, more fallible men pimping out patriarchy in the name of their heavenly Father for their selfish pleasures at the expense of women and children, just as they continue to do today. We will do everything we can not let that happen to our daughters, to empower them to protect themselves.

This may be uncomfortable for some folks to read, but change for the better doesn't come from acquiescing to the status quo and believing its God's will. Because it's our will, and it comes from confronting the very discomfort we've allowed ourselves to live with, the defaulting to faulty male leadership for generations. I'm angry that this destructive male dominance continues to subdue love, freedom and yes, feminism. A feminism that has nothing to do with being anti-male and everything to do with ending oppression, domestic violence and sexual assault (thank you, bell hooks and Aretha Franklin).

"The LORD is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?"

"You better think (think)..."

Anything he wants. So, I'd argue being a real man today is all about unraveling our own patriarchal demise.

My Christmas Wish of Awareness

"To know love, men must be able to let go the will to dominate. They must be able to choose life over death. They must be willing to change."

--bell hooks, The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love

It was in that moment that every inappropriate word and action against women I had ever witnessed in my lifetime slithered into my consciousness and catcalled my own male guilt.

Fifteen minutes earlier the rental car driver came to the body shop to pick me up and take me to their office to get our rental car. We were having our car fixed and had to leave it at the body shop for a few days. My driver was an older man, maybe late fifties, and he had the local classic rock radio channel on.

"Right on," I said. "I love the Hippo." That was the colloquial name for the rock station KHIP.

"Me too," he said. "Gotta have my rock and roll."

"Yes, indeed," I said.

As we backed out of our parking spot, a woman pulled in and parked the truck she drove. We waited for her to get out and cross in front of us to enter the body shop office.

"She's cute," my driver said.

"Yes," I said, not really thinking about it. I just wanted to get my rental car and get back to work.

He shook his head and laughed. "You know, you can't even say a girl is cute anymore, or she'll report you. You could've done it fifteen years ago and accidentally touch her leg and she could sue you now. Crazy."

I heard every word he said with a heightened attentiveness, but didn't say anything.

He went on. "You have to be careful -- you can't even look at a woman anymore without being accused of something. It's crazy."

He laughed, but I didn't think it was funny.

"You know, many of these women coming out today were sexually harassed and assaulted," I said.

That unsettled him. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

I went on. "This is pretty serious, the way too many women are still treated today. I have two daughters and I can't imagine them having to deal with this kind of crap when they're older, but unfortunately they most likely will and we'll want them to speak up and not take it."

"Yeah, you're right. I know," he said. He nodded as he drove, but I could tell he was still uncomfortable.

We both got quiet then. I felt better that I had spoken up, but it certainly wasn't anything heroic. I could only think of every time in my life when I heard another man say something derogatory about another women because they refused his advances, that women are too sensitive and misunderstand too easily, that in the case of harassment and assault it was the woman's fault and that we live in a too politically correct world where men are blamed for it all when the wind blows the wrong way. That for every woman who cries rape there's another who falsely accuses.

But I knew that was all bullshit, even when there are those who do falsely accuse. The fact is that 1 in 2 women and 1 in 5 men have experienced some form of sexual violence in their lives, and 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men were sexually abused before the age of 18 (according to statistics from NO MORE, an nonprofit organization that unites and strengthens a diverse, global community to help end domestic violence, sexual assault and abuse).

My driver's cell phone rang. "Hello. Yes, yes, we just left there. She needs a ride? Okay, we'll circle back." He hung up and added to me, "We've got another person needing to get a rental car, so if it's okay we'll head back there and get her."

"Sure," I said.

"It's probably that woman we saw park the truck," he said.

"Yep."

And sure enough it was. She got in the back seat, and after some friendly banter between the three of us, the car got quiet except for the radio playing. Tom Petty pleaded with us to break down.

"Break down, go ahead and give it to me
Break down, honey take me through the night
Break down now I standin' here can't you see
Break down, it's all right
It's all right
It's all right..."

I loved that old rock song, but in this moment it wasn't "all right" and the context felt awkward, as if I was the one who had done something inappropriate and felt it fill the car like warm, stinky air. Our other passenger had no idea of what had been discussed just moments earlier between the driver and myself. I wanted to blurt out how I'm all about treating each other better, about treating women with respect as equals, about how I made my own mistakes over the years and how life lessons are only as good as what you do with the learning, about how I grew up with abusive patriarchy and domestic violence and sexual assault and that's why I'm on the city Commission for the Prevention of Violence Against Women and involved in Kidpower and why I along with many others want to change the culture of victim and perpetrator and protective self-defense to my Christmas wish of awareness and prevention and a willingness to change, of ending the perpetual battle between unforgiving modern feminism and the imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy (thank you, bell hooks).

All in one breath. And then I thought better of it, because they both would've thought me crazy, and I'm sure they were already both good people deep down, even with the driver's commentary.

Instead, we got to the rental car place and then went on our separate ways. I was glad I had spoken up, though, and told my wife the same later that day.

"Good for you, Sweetie. Did you tell him you're on the city commission?" she asked.

"No, I didn't. But I thought about it."